20 ms·

Years ago, I heard of a dating site doing the opposite of this. They normally sent periodic digests and newsletters to their users to try to increase engagement

Years ago, I heard of a dating site doing the opposite of this. They normally sent periodic digests and newsletters to their users to try to increase engagement, but if a user went a certain number of months without logging into their account, but still allowed monthly fees to be charged, they were labeled as a “sleeping giant” in the database. Once in this state, they would not be contacted by the site for any reason until they logged in again by their own initiative. The site had determined that, on average, contacting these users had a net-negative effect on retention — i.e., they would be reminded that they were paying for an unused service and cancel.

jclulow 6y ago
I am routinely surprised to receive email spam from my gym membership. It's like they're daring me to remember to cancel it.
- ta17711771 6y ago
  Maybe they know their market better than their market knows itself?
- hackissimo123 6y ago
  My gym (a very popular UK-wide chain) has suspended all customer payments while their gyms are closed during lockdown. Instead they're spamming me trying to get me to pay for their workout app which they obviously knocked out in a hurry in an attempt to salvage some cashflow during this crisis. I can't blame them for trying, but it's definitely not a good time to be running a gym.
TechBro8615 6y ago
I’m quite sure hellosign does this as well. I did not receive a single email from them for two years, but they charged me $140 two times. I never used their paid offering. The second year, I never even logged in. I received no marketing emails, no “you’re about to be billed” emails, no “we received your payment” emails. It seems wrong.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
cocochanel 6y ago
Just a few weeks ago I realized I was paying for Xbox Live without having played it for 8 years. I didn't even remember the password.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  Cancelling for XboxLive has always been a pain (at least until 5 years ago, I don't know now): they make it easy to subscribe online and pay with a credit card, but cancelling forces you to look for a phone number buried in help pages and call a hotline that's only open during business hours or something. Pure dark pattern.
  - 1bc29b36f623ba8 6y ago
    I cancelled mine a few months ago, and could do it through Microsoft's web site. It was a pain to find the option though. The best way to handle Xbox payments is to buy pre-paid codes in the store and use them (assuming that's an option where you live).
  - TeMPOraL 6y ago
    This kind of stuff should be illegal. In GDPR, they put a clause that rescinding consent must be as easy as granting it, precisely because of that. (Not that I've ever seen a site on which there was an obvious way to bring the consent popup back up after it was closed, but hopefully one day data protection authorities will unclog their pipes and the fines will start flying.)
    - comex 6y ago
      As of 2018, it is illegal in California: https://www.cnet.com/news/companies-must-let-customers-cancel-subscriptions-online-california-law-says/ https://www.cnet.com/news/companies-must-let-customers-cance...
  - bcrosby95 6y ago
    I cancelled through their website around 6 years ago. I didn't find it particularly hard, and it definitely didn't require a phone call, but maybe I just got lucky by randomly happening across the correct page.
ganstyles 6y ago
The Economist did this to me. $5/mo and then auto renewed at something like $250/yr. All my credit cards are just auto pay full balance every month, and I don't check them as often as I should. Noticed the charge last month, found out they had been charging me for years for their digital subscription.
- gregjw 6y ago
  Had a similar experience with The Economist, it's also impossible to cancel your subscription online, you have to call them.
  - rconti 6y ago
    My economist sub renewed at a cheaper/more reasonable rate (I think the common $130/yr that's at least better than newsstand) but I just think their subscription services are in the utter dark ages. Changing anything (Updating an expired credit card, change of address, etc) is painful.
    - mrweasel 6y ago
      Address was pretty easy, but if you don’t have the link they emailed you when your credit card expires then it is pretty much impossible to update your payment information.
  - KajMagnus 6y ago
    What happens if you block them, or your credit card, so they'll get no money? Is there any risk they'd sue you? Or other auto renew services, what do you, or others, think — do they sometimes sue their customers whose credit card expired? That sounds annoying b.t.w., having to call them etc.
    - mrweasel 6y ago
      I believe it’s fine to simply email them. The self service on the Economists website is notoriously bad. It’s not really because it’s not working or that hard to use, it’s just insanely poorly organized.
aspenmayer 6y ago
There’s a growing app industry to combat these dark patterns, an industry with its own costs and benefits. I believe iOS and Android also are incorporating dashboards and tools to manage subscriptions made via Apple Pay and Google Pay respectively. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/z43qx9/how-to-cancel-recurring-subscriptions-apps https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/z43qx9/how-to-cancel-recu...
- baddox 6y ago
  I would love to know if any of these are actually good, instead of just their own scams. I just want to see all recurring payments grouped by something intelligent (like the vendor and/or the amount).
  - usrusr 6y ago
    The intermediary services themselves (by Apple and Google) are surely no scams, I'd consider that a certainty even on the simple observation that they already are ridiculously effective money making schemes when they are entirely honest. But it's not quite clear unfortunately how much protection they actually offer. A bad player could still try to enforce some hidden EULA small print that claims to empower them to ignore the cancellation and send bills the old fashioned way after cancellation on the intermediary. I really don't know if Apple or Google are taking effective steps against schemes like that or if they have just been lucky so far that those scammers are still finding enough prey outside of the walled gardens. (ps: re-reading this comment I find myself sounding more critical than intended, actually I love subscribing through that kind of intermediary, I'd even consider paying extra. I'm just afraid that the protection offered might not be quite as strong as it seems)
  - roel_v 6y ago
    I had a good experience with a google app subscription - cancelled it from the play app, no problem.
- ponker 6y ago
  This is why I always pay with Apple or Amex... these guys make lots of money from their customers and are always ready to tell some seedy vendor to get fucked.
chrischen 6y ago
This is what Hulu did to me, and frankly, these companies are optimizing for short term revenue rather than for people actually want to pay for their products.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- sytelus 6y ago
  When you don't have a viable product, its hard to optimize for long term.
staticautomatic 6y ago
That's fascinating and very smart.
- staticautomatic 6y ago
  I'm not salty about it but I don't understand. Could someone please explain to me why this is being down voted?
  - slx26 6y ago
    "fascinating" might not be the best word for a behavior like this. "smart" might also sound like an hyperbole to many. if you really want to earn more money, this kind of petty tricks are not difficult to figure out. overall, some people might take it like you being interested in applying this kind of tactics yourself.
kbyatnal 6y ago
This is why privacy.com is great. Whenever I sign up for a subscription, I create a virtual card and after paying for the first month, I "pause" the card (ie. decline all additional charges). When I get the notification that my payment failed and I'm actually getting value out of the subscription, I log in and change the status to "active" again.
- KajMagnus 6y ago
  It sounds as if you are not worried that they would sue you? What are the reasons you feel safe? (Then maybe I could try this me too)
  - Hamuko 6y ago
    Why would a company sue a consumer because of a cancelled credit card?
    - Androider 6y ago
      A cancelled credit card does not mean bills are automatically void or the recurring subscription cancelled, but it's a scale whether it's worth it for the company to try to collect or not. If your rent autobill fails, I think everyone realizes it doesn't mean you don't have to pay. If the credit card for your gym membership expires, I think most people would likewise fear (and has been known to happen) that your bill would eventually be sent to collections. A $5/mo subscription? Not worth the time of the company to try to collect. A Salesforce or Adobe subscription on a card? I certainly wouldn't gamble on that, and would try to properly cancel the subscription.
      - Hamuko 6y ago
        Netflix, like many subscription services, charges you for services ahead of time. If you don't pay, you don't get the service. It's that simple.
        6y ago
mackrevinack 6y ago
sounds like a great way to get customers to hate you and never want to use your service again!
sytelus 6y ago
I'm getting charged by rhapsody.com every quarter for no apparent reason. I used their service like may be 8 years ago. They have a phone number in their merchant line which is invalid. When I filed request to void the charge to American Express, initially they declined! Then I filed appeal with angry comments and they finally voided it. It took over two months for the process. I just saw new Rhapsody charge again. The credit card companies literally have no control over who can charge us. If anyone at stripe is reading this, I think this is golden opportunity for consumer focused payment service. One should be at least able to block a merchant from charging my card. I can do that for spammer email but can't do that for spam charge on my card - in 2020!
- amelius 6y ago
  There's an asymmetry whenever you sign up for something. It's always them who determine the terms. I think there should be more consumer protection.
- balladeer 6y ago
  This was a revelation sometimes back and it was Amex (relatively new in India) but I am sure it would be same for any credit card issuer. I had a VPS in Europe that I had emailed the support to cancel about a year ago and they had replied telling me I could do it myself (listed the steps) or they'd need another confirmation from me to go ahead and cancel. I forgot about it. Got charged some 40 Euro a year later. I was shocked. My first thought was a compromised card. But immediately afterwards I received invoice from VPS provider. I called the bank and asked them how did that happen. They said it's possible. Lucky for me the provider immediately reversed the charge. The thing is I had cancelled that Amex card almost a year before that charge had happened. It was still charged! I was baffled. Coming from a country where literally every credit card payment has to be authorised via an OTP or password (since as long as I can remember) it was a whole new world for me. Well, that cancelled card was charged again (almost a year after I had the last experience) when I shopped at AliExpress and forgot to switch to a new card while making the payment. This time I just paid the bill and went around Internet removing that cancelled card.
  - 6y ago
dredds 6y ago
As an aside, when i top up my prepaid mobile i have the option to donate the top-up to another number. Yet dating sites i've seen don't allow subscribing someone else for a limited time (by opting-in on their side of course). Is there some reason as to why this is not an option on most dating sites? Seems courteous, but it might lead to scams or begging perhaps?
- namibj 6y ago
  Twitch Subscriptions can be "gifted". You might want to check that ecosystem for concrete begging behavior and such.
globular-toast 6y ago
The insurance company I worked at operated on a similar principle. It was well known that older customers brought in a huge amount of profit because they tended not to claim, nor do they care about getting the best deal. So while younger customers were targeted with new deals and features, the older customers were left alone and would stay on "legacy" policies for decades sometimes. Interestingly at some point they modelled what would happen if the premiums of the older customers was increased and they reckoned they could charge some customers double and they still wouldn't switch. This could have been used to offset price cuts for younger customers and generate much more profit overall, but it was decided to be unethical so they didn't follow the model.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  I find insurance companies are always dangling discount offers they say will save you money if you have multiple policies. I eventually decided it was a big mistake, because if you have multiple, or all, your policies with one company, you're just advertising to them that you value convenience and simplicity over shopping around. So you may get a discount line item, but you will end up paying much more.
nabla9 6y ago
Our company did data mining for a large bank and we discovered that customer marketing where the bank initiates person-to-person contact with a customer makes people to change bank. Customer marketing and reach out programs were net negatives. They lost more money than they did bring in by a large margin.
peteretep 6y ago
Experian pulled much the same shit on me. I hadn’t locked in in six months, so they disabled my account but kept charging me. A year or so I tried to sign in and it said my account had been disabled due to inactivity. Had to escalate it more than once before I got them to refund the whole thing.
- wdb 6y ago
  Wait you pay and they still lock your account due to inactivity?
  - peteretep 6y ago
    I’ve no idea if this is still the case, but yes, that was the situation.
    - g_p 6y ago
      Sounds like a fairly straightforward contested charge on grounds of failure to provide the service they were paid for? If you couldn't access it and were locked out, they can't claim they provided the service.
      - peteretep 6y ago
        I suspect that’s why I got the full refund
mandeepj 6y ago
Review your credit card statements every month then you will not be a “sleeping giant” in reality also
martin_bech 6y ago
I actually helped create workflows like the for fitness clubs. If member had not worked out for 2 weeks, massive encouragement, we miss you etc.. more than 5 weeks... nothing.. I now a club once sent a simple questionaire to members who had not worked out in a long time.. just to gage why.. massive cancellations followed.
flurdy 6y ago
Yeah, sleepers make up a large if not a majority of many recurring revenues. I once worked at a very popular online service where I was in charge of the payments team. We had many ways to subscribe or upgrade, but to cancel it online was possible but very difficult. The cancel option was hidden under many clicks and dropdowns. That was mandated from C-level management even though we kept imploring to allow us to make it more obvious. I think the majority instead contacted customer services to manually cancel it. Some also did a chargeback, which companies hate as it is expensive. But in the end, there were so many sleepers that every time there was a plan to email all customers about an offer, or new service, it was always raised that it might make a lot of customers aware that they have the subscription, or check with their kids if they still need it, so sometimes the mailshots were filtered to active members, or just skipped all together etc. It was an uneasy balance of "don't touch", and never felt nice. Last year I was contracted back to that company to help sunset the product I worked on years before, writing tools to notify and cancel all recurring payments. A huge chunk of customers was then sleepers that had not logged for 7-9 years. I do wonder how many were surprised when they got the cancellation email! :)
- hombre_fatal 6y ago
  Just makes you realize how catastrophically bad our system serves us. It's beyond insane how, in the USA at least, you give someone a string of numbers and they basically get pull access to your money for what might as well be perpetuity. And that you have to use to a specific bank, Paypal, Apple Pay, etc. to have a system as simple as a list of entities authorized to bill you in the future. And the ability to terminate those permissions. Just think how well most people would be served financially if everyone was receiving phone notifications when they were recur-rebilled. "$15 to 24-Hour Fitness" popups up on their homescreen. And they could cancel the permission. Or at least just think "hmm, what's that for? Ah, right, I do want to continue being billed." It takes a lot of mental gymnastics and charity to imagine how this system wasn't expressly designed by and for the enrichment of grifters.
wolco 6y ago
Let me guess AshleyMadison.com?
antaviana 6y ago
This reminds me a case of a large publisher that was under a ISO 9001 certification project. ISO 9001 requires to implement some kind of customer satisfaction feedback as to assess customer satisfaction for ongoing improvement. When the ISO auditors/consultants said that they should do something about it such as sending surveys to subscribers to assess their satisfaction, the Sales & Marketing VP said that if ISO 9001 meant that they had to remind subscribers that they had a subscription they do not use, they would rather cancel the ISO 9001 certification project altogether.
tlrobinson 6y ago
This is also the reason I almost never sign up for yearly plans. I'm much more likely to unsubscribe from something I don't use if I see the credit card charge monthly.
MisterBastahrd 6y ago
Recurring billing is basically a scheme, at least in the journalism / entertainment world, to get customers to pay for goods and services they don't use, with the hope that they either won't notice or go through the effort that they're being charged. Recurring billing services have gone to efforts to acquire the new information from credit card companies whenever a card is updated to maintain the flow of money. I used to work for a publisher, and the introduction of recurring billing cut our cancellations for both periodical sales AND ad sales to local businesses by over 80%.
caseysoftware 6y ago
I worked on a dating site briefly and saw exactly this. iirc, something like 20% of their customer base fell into this state. It was one of many things that convinced me that space was ugly. I described another pattern here: https://caseysoftware.com/blog/working-for-a-dating-website https://caseysoftware.com/blog/working-for-a-dating-website

jclulow 6y ago

I am routinely surprised to receive email spam from my gym membership. It's like they're daring me to remember to cancel it.

ta17711771 6y ago
Maybe they know their market better than their market knows itself?
hackissimo123 6y ago
My gym (a very popular UK-wide chain) has suspended all customer payments while their gyms are closed during lockdown. Instead they're spamming me trying to get me to pay for their workout app which they obviously knocked out in a hurry in an attempt to salvage some cashflow during this crisis. I can't blame them for trying, but it's definitely not a good time to be running a gym.

TechBro8615 6y ago

I’m quite sure hellosign does this as well. I did not receive a single email from them for two years, but they charged me $140 two times. I never used their paid offering. The second year, I never even logged in. I received no marketing emails, no “you’re about to be billed” emails, no “we received your payment” emails. It seems wrong.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

cocochanel 6y ago

Just a few weeks ago I realized I was paying for Xbox Live without having played it for 8 years. I didn't even remember the password.

ekianjo 6y ago
Cancelling for XboxLive has always been a pain (at least until 5 years ago, I don't know now): they make it easy to subscribe online and pay with a credit card, but cancelling forces you to look for a phone number buried in help pages and call a hotline that's only open during business hours or something. Pure dark pattern.
- 1bc29b36f623ba8 6y ago
  I cancelled mine a few months ago, and could do it through Microsoft's web site. It was a pain to find the option though. The best way to handle Xbox payments is to buy pre-paid codes in the store and use them (assuming that's an option where you live).
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  This kind of stuff should be illegal. In GDPR, they put a clause that rescinding consent must be as easy as granting it, precisely because of that. (Not that I've ever seen a site on which there was an obvious way to bring the consent popup back up after it was closed, but hopefully one day data protection authorities will unclog their pipes and the fines will start flying.)
  - comex 6y ago
    As of 2018, it is illegal in California: https://www.cnet.com/news/companies-must-let-customers-cancel-subscriptions-online-california-law-says/ https://www.cnet.com/news/companies-must-let-customers-cance...
- bcrosby95 6y ago
  I cancelled through their website around 6 years ago. I didn't find it particularly hard, and it definitely didn't require a phone call, but maybe I just got lucky by randomly happening across the correct page.

ganstyles 6y ago

The Economist did this to me. $5/mo and then auto renewed at something like $250/yr. All my credit cards are just auto pay full balance every month, and I don't check them as often as I should. Noticed the charge last month, found out they had been charging me for years for their digital subscription.

gregjw 6y ago
Had a similar experience with The Economist, it's also impossible to cancel your subscription online, you have to call them.
- rconti 6y ago
  My economist sub renewed at a cheaper/more reasonable rate (I think the common $130/yr that's at least better than newsstand) but I just think their subscription services are in the utter dark ages. Changing anything (Updating an expired credit card, change of address, etc) is painful.
  - mrweasel 6y ago
    Address was pretty easy, but if you don’t have the link they emailed you when your credit card expires then it is pretty much impossible to update your payment information.
- KajMagnus 6y ago
  What happens if you block them, or your credit card, so they'll get no money? Is there any risk they'd sue you? Or other auto renew services, what do you, or others, think — do they sometimes sue their customers whose credit card expired? That sounds annoying b.t.w., having to call them etc.
  - mrweasel 6y ago
    I believe it’s fine to simply email them. The self service on the Economists website is notoriously bad. It’s not really because it’s not working or that hard to use, it’s just insanely poorly organized.

aspenmayer 6y ago

There’s a growing app industry to combat these dark patterns, an industry with its own costs and benefits. I believe iOS and Android also are incorporating dashboards and tools to manage subscriptions made via Apple Pay and Google Pay respectively. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/z43qx9/how-to-cancel-recurring-subscriptions-apps https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/z43qx9/how-to-cancel-recu...

baddox 6y ago
I would love to know if any of these are actually good, instead of just their own scams. I just want to see all recurring payments grouped by something intelligent (like the vendor and/or the amount).
- usrusr 6y ago
  The intermediary services themselves (by Apple and Google) are surely no scams, I'd consider that a certainty even on the simple observation that they already are ridiculously effective money making schemes when they are entirely honest. But it's not quite clear unfortunately how much protection they actually offer. A bad player could still try to enforce some hidden EULA small print that claims to empower them to ignore the cancellation and send bills the old fashioned way after cancellation on the intermediary. I really don't know if Apple or Google are taking effective steps against schemes like that or if they have just been lucky so far that those scammers are still finding enough prey outside of the walled gardens. (ps: re-reading this comment I find myself sounding more critical than intended, actually I love subscribing through that kind of intermediary, I'd even consider paying extra. I'm just afraid that the protection offered might not be quite as strong as it seems)
- roel_v 6y ago
  I had a good experience with a google app subscription - cancelled it from the play app, no problem.
ponker 6y ago
This is why I always pay with Apple or Amex... these guys make lots of money from their customers and are always ready to tell some seedy vendor to get fucked.

chrischen 6y ago

This is what Hulu did to me, and frankly, these companies are optimizing for short term revenue rather than for people actually want to pay for their products.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sytelus 6y ago
When you don't have a viable product, its hard to optimize for long term.

staticautomatic 6y ago

That's fascinating and very smart.

staticautomatic 6y ago
I'm not salty about it but I don't understand. Could someone please explain to me why this is being down voted?
- slx26 6y ago
  "fascinating" might not be the best word for a behavior like this. "smart" might also sound like an hyperbole to many. if you really want to earn more money, this kind of petty tricks are not difficult to figure out. overall, some people might take it like you being interested in applying this kind of tactics yourself.

kbyatnal 6y ago

This is why privacy.com is great. Whenever I sign up for a subscription, I create a virtual card and after paying for the first month, I "pause" the card (ie. decline all additional charges). When I get the notification that my payment failed and I'm actually getting value out of the subscription, I log in and change the status to "active" again.

KajMagnus 6y ago
It sounds as if you are not worried that they would sue you? What are the reasons you feel safe? (Then maybe I could try this me too)
- Hamuko 6y ago
  Why would a company sue a consumer because of a cancelled credit card?
  - Androider 6y ago
    A cancelled credit card does not mean bills are automatically void or the recurring subscription cancelled, but it's a scale whether it's worth it for the company to try to collect or not. If your rent autobill fails, I think everyone realizes it doesn't mean you don't have to pay. If the credit card for your gym membership expires, I think most people would likewise fear (and has been known to happen) that your bill would eventually be sent to collections. A $5/mo subscription? Not worth the time of the company to try to collect. A Salesforce or Adobe subscription on a card? I certainly wouldn't gamble on that, and would try to properly cancel the subscription.
    - Hamuko 6y ago
      Netflix, like many subscription services, charges you for services ahead of time. If you don't pay, you don't get the service. It's that simple.
      - 6y ago

mackrevinack 6y ago

sounds like a great way to get customers to hate you and never want to use your service again!

sytelus 6y ago

I'm getting charged by rhapsody.com every quarter for no apparent reason. I used their service like may be 8 years ago. They have a phone number in their merchant line which is invalid. When I filed request to void the charge to American Express, initially they declined! Then I filed appeal with angry comments and they finally voided it. It took over two months for the process. I just saw new Rhapsody charge again. The credit card companies literally have no control over who can charge us. If anyone at stripe is reading this, I think this is golden opportunity for consumer focused payment service. One should be at least able to block a merchant from charging my card. I can do that for spammer email but can't do that for spam charge on my card - in 2020!

amelius 6y ago
There's an asymmetry whenever you sign up for something. It's always them who determine the terms. I think there should be more consumer protection.
balladeer 6y ago
This was a revelation sometimes back and it was Amex (relatively new in India) but I am sure it would be same for any credit card issuer. I had a VPS in Europe that I had emailed the support to cancel about a year ago and they had replied telling me I could do it myself (listed the steps) or they'd need another confirmation from me to go ahead and cancel. I forgot about it. Got charged some 40 Euro a year later. I was shocked. My first thought was a compromised card. But immediately afterwards I received invoice from VPS provider. I called the bank and asked them how did that happen. They said it's possible. Lucky for me the provider immediately reversed the charge. The thing is I had cancelled that Amex card almost a year before that charge had happened. It was still charged! I was baffled. Coming from a country where literally every credit card payment has to be authorised via an OTP or password (since as long as I can remember) it was a whole new world for me. Well, that cancelled card was charged again (almost a year after I had the last experience) when I shopped at AliExpress and forgot to switch to a new card while making the payment. This time I just paid the bill and went around Internet removing that cancelled card.
- 6y ago

dredds 6y ago

As an aside, when i top up my prepaid mobile i have the option to donate the top-up to another number. Yet dating sites i've seen don't allow subscribing someone else for a limited time (by opting-in on their side of course). Is there some reason as to why this is not an option on most dating sites? Seems courteous, but it might lead to scams or begging perhaps?

namibj 6y ago
Twitch Subscriptions can be "gifted". You might want to check that ecosystem for concrete begging behavior and such.

globular-toast 6y ago

The insurance company I worked at operated on a similar principle. It was well known that older customers brought in a huge amount of profit because they tended not to claim, nor do they care about getting the best deal. So while younger customers were targeted with new deals and features, the older customers were left alone and would stay on "legacy" policies for decades sometimes. Interestingly at some point they modelled what would happen if the premiums of the older customers was increased and they reckoned they could charge some customers double and they still wouldn't switch. This could have been used to offset price cuts for younger customers and generate much more profit overall, but it was decided to be unethical so they didn't follow the model.

perl4ever 6y ago
I find insurance companies are always dangling discount offers they say will save you money if you have multiple policies. I eventually decided it was a big mistake, because if you have multiple, or all, your policies with one company, you're just advertising to them that you value convenience and simplicity over shopping around. So you may get a discount line item, but you will end up paying much more.

nabla9 6y ago

Our company did data mining for a large bank and we discovered that customer marketing where the bank initiates person-to-person contact with a customer makes people to change bank. Customer marketing and reach out programs were net negatives. They lost more money than they did bring in by a large margin.

peteretep 6y ago

Experian pulled much the same shit on me. I hadn’t locked in in six months, so they disabled my account but kept charging me. A year or so I tried to sign in and it said my account had been disabled due to inactivity. Had to escalate it more than once before I got them to refund the whole thing.

wdb 6y ago
Wait you pay and they still lock your account due to inactivity?
- peteretep 6y ago
  I’ve no idea if this is still the case, but yes, that was the situation.
  - g_p 6y ago
    Sounds like a fairly straightforward contested charge on grounds of failure to provide the service they were paid for? If you couldn't access it and were locked out, they can't claim they provided the service.
    - peteretep 6y ago
      I suspect that’s why I got the full refund

mandeepj 6y ago

Review your credit card statements every month then you will not be a “sleeping giant” in reality also

martin_bech 6y ago

I actually helped create workflows like the for fitness clubs. If member had not worked out for 2 weeks, massive encouragement, we miss you etc.. more than 5 weeks... nothing.. I now a club once sent a simple questionaire to members who had not worked out in a long time.. just to gage why.. massive cancellations followed.

flurdy 6y ago

Yeah, sleepers make up a large if not a majority of many recurring revenues. I once worked at a very popular online service where I was in charge of the payments team. We had many ways to subscribe or upgrade, but to cancel it online was possible but very difficult. The cancel option was hidden under many clicks and dropdowns. That was mandated from C-level management even though we kept imploring to allow us to make it more obvious. I think the majority instead contacted customer services to manually cancel it. Some also did a chargeback, which companies hate as it is expensive. But in the end, there were so many sleepers that every time there was a plan to email all customers about an offer, or new service, it was always raised that it might make a lot of customers aware that they have the subscription, or check with their kids if they still need it, so sometimes the mailshots were filtered to active members, or just skipped all together etc. It was an uneasy balance of "don't touch", and never felt nice. Last year I was contracted back to that company to help sunset the product I worked on years before, writing tools to notify and cancel all recurring payments. A huge chunk of customers was then sleepers that had not logged for 7-9 years. I do wonder how many were surprised when they got the cancellation email! :)

hombre_fatal 6y ago
Just makes you realize how catastrophically bad our system serves us. It's beyond insane how, in the USA at least, you give someone a string of numbers and they basically get pull access to your money for what might as well be perpetuity. And that you have to use to a specific bank, Paypal, Apple Pay, etc. to have a system as simple as a list of entities authorized to bill you in the future. And the ability to terminate those permissions. Just think how well most people would be served financially if everyone was receiving phone notifications when they were recur-rebilled. "$15 to 24-Hour Fitness" popups up on their homescreen. And they could cancel the permission. Or at least just think "hmm, what's that for? Ah, right, I do want to continue being billed." It takes a lot of mental gymnastics and charity to imagine how this system wasn't expressly designed by and for the enrichment of grifters.

wolco 6y ago

Let me guess AshleyMadison.com?

antaviana 6y ago

This reminds me a case of a large publisher that was under a ISO 9001 certification project. ISO 9001 requires to implement some kind of customer satisfaction feedback as to assess customer satisfaction for ongoing improvement. When the ISO auditors/consultants said that they should do something about it such as sending surveys to subscribers to assess their satisfaction, the Sales & Marketing VP said that if ISO 9001 meant that they had to remind subscribers that they had a subscription they do not use, they would rather cancel the ISO 9001 certification project altogether.

tlrobinson 6y ago

This is also the reason I almost never sign up for yearly plans. I'm much more likely to unsubscribe from something I don't use if I see the credit card charge monthly.

MisterBastahrd 6y ago

Recurring billing is basically a scheme, at least in the journalism / entertainment world, to get customers to pay for goods and services they don't use, with the hope that they either won't notice or go through the effort that they're being charged. Recurring billing services have gone to efforts to acquire the new information from credit card companies whenever a card is updated to maintain the flow of money. I used to work for a publisher, and the introduction of recurring billing cut our cancellations for both periodical sales AND ad sales to local businesses by over 80%.

caseysoftware 6y ago

I worked on a dating site briefly and saw exactly this. iirc, something like 20% of their customer base fell into this state. It was one of many things that convinced me that space was ugly. I described another pattern here: https://caseysoftware.com/blog/working-for-a-dating-website https://caseysoftware.com/blog/working-for-a-dating-website